CardioChek Plus Analyzer

Hi!

I had performed a large comparison between Cholestek, CardioChek, and our Vistas.  For comparability, the Cholestek had better comparability to main lab.  The Cardiochek had a negative bias, I believe. As far as ease of use, the Cardiochek, however, would have been my first choice.  Room temp reagents, handheld, fast.  That isn't to say the the Cholestek was difficult to use, just larger and took up more room on the table.  Either one would be great in a POC setting.

Mary

I have 5 Cardiocheks for our mobile unit.  We have failed every PT from API since we had them. We had these for the last 3 years.   I am at my wits end.  They do not compare with our main chemistry instruments the BC AU 680.  I had several calls into PTS. I am looking for other options.

We had Cholestek and switched to Cardiochek because of the TAT. We had the employee sit there for 5 min waiting for their results and if it failed then we had to wait another 5 min. We were able to go from having 5 operators to 2 for our health fairs because turn around time was cut in half with cardiochek.

We use it once a year for employee fair. The version I have does not include a glucose for our screening which is the only con from the Cholestek.

We went with CardioChek due to the storage requirements of the reagents and the ability to use them in higher temperatures. Correlation with lab instrument (Vitros) was not good. We quit subscribing to PT materials because they would never pass and they were not required since it was a waived test. The company is not good about getting back to you about issues.

Laura, I would love to know what you are looking at since you seem to have the same issues.

Just to relate an alternate approach - we too were approached years ago by our Employee/Occupational Health Dept about adding POC lipid profile testing.  This started with a Cholestech salesperson approaching corporate employee health to pitch the idea, which they quickly accepted.  When it came down the reality of meeting the compliance requirements, QC, PT, maintenance, etc., as well as looking honestly as to what they would actually be doing with the information (i.e., no one's going to be prescribing statins the same day), the whole thing got dropped.

As I always say about some POC tests, just because they can be done, doesn't mean they should be done .  Bad information is worse than no information at all.

Hi Cindy,

I saw in my Fisher point of care catalog; Accutrend Plus by Roche.  I reached out to Fisher and was suppose to get me in touch with the sales person. That has not happen yet.

  I then reached out to Henry Schein, because the mobile unit purchased the CardioChek thru them.  My Rep , told me not to go with the Accutrend Plus because it doesn't agree with the chemistry analyzers. He sent me this  link:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22384524

At this point my recommendation to my medical director is to drop Cholesterol from screening.

We have several of the CardioChek Plus meters and have not had any issues with Proficiency testing or with PTS.